AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

The millions of fragments of information that we divulge online can be used to build an accurate picture of us. Credit: Amnesty International

A migrant ship graveyard in Lampedusa, Italy. © Giles Clarke/Getty Images Reportage.

08/07/2015 – The measures introduced by the European Union in April 2015 to strengthen search and rescue capacity in the central Mediterranean, following the closure of Italy’s Operation Mare Nostrum at the end of 2014, have resulted in a significant decrease in the death rate of migrants and refugees taking this perilous route into Europe.

Serbia and Macedonia have become a sink for the overflow of refugees and migrants that nobody in the EU seems willing to receive.

03/07/2015 – Europe’s borderlands: Violations against migrants and refugees in Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary, finds that an increasing number of vulnerable people are being left stranded in legal limbo across the Balkans. The situation is exacerbated by push-backs or deportations at every border, restricted access to asylum en route and a lack of safe and legal routes into the EU.

Amnesty International

The revelation that the UK government has been spying on Amnesty International highlights the gross inadequacies in the UK’s surveillance legislation.

30/06/2015 – Amnesty International is dismayed by the actions of the Turkish authorities, who on 28 June, prevented the annual Pride march from taking place after thousands had already gathered in Taksim, central Istanbul.

Amnesty International

The twin financial and refugee crises have created a perfect storm on the Aegean islands that only concerted action by both the Greek authorities and European leaders can quell.

• Worst refugee crisis since World War II. • One million refugees desperately in need of resettlement. • Four million Syrian refugees struggling to survive in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. • More than three million refugees in sub-Saharan Africa, and only a small fraction offered resettlement since 2013. • 3,500 people drowned while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in 2014 — 1,865 so far in 2015. • 300 people died in the Andaman Sea in the first three months of 2015 due to starvation, dehydration and abuse by boat crews.